The ASUS A8V mainboard is likely to be the first platform available for AMD’s processors with 939 pin Processors.

Some Japanese web-sites report that ASUS will start selling Socket 939 mainboards in late May, just days before AMD will reportedly officially unveil its AMD64 chips in PGA939 form-factor. Advanced Micro Devices is likely to formally launch the new AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Athlon 64 FX processors on the 1st of June, in Taipei, Taiwan.

·4 DIMM slots for up to 4GB of PC3200 memory; Note that for dual-channel configurations you have to
install a pair of identical memory modules

·5 PCI slots and 1 AGP 8x slot

·3-channel ATA-33/66/100/133 integrated controller

·4 Serial ATA-150 ports with RAID

·10/100/1000Mb/s Ethernet controller from Marvel

·Wireless LAN 802.11b/g Access Point

·8 USB 2.0 ports

·1 FireWire port

·8-channel audio solution from VIA

·Overclocking, tuning and other advanced functions available with ASUSTeK’s mainboards

·ATX Form Factor

Sadly the mainboard will not support any new technologies like PCI Express because VIA Technologies had delayed the commercial release of its VIA KT890 core-logic from the 2nd quarter to the 3rd quarter of the year, ASUS had to stick with VIA’s latest K8T800 Pro chipset that sports 1000MHz HyperTransport bus a requirement for all AMD’s new Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX products, but doesnt have support for PCI Express. ASUS had originally planned to use VIA KT890 core-logic which Supports PCI Express.

AMD Athlon 64 processors with 939 pins will integrate only 512KB of L2, half of the size incorporated in today’s the 754-pin chips. The dual-channel memory controller is likely to decrease the impact of cut-down cache and is even likely to improve performance of 939-pin chips over 754-pin processors with 1MB on-die secondary-level cache. The CPUs in different packaging will not have similar model numbers at equal clock speeds. Industry analysts believe that only in early 2005 will the new AMD Athlon 64 processors with 939 pins outstrip the AMD Athlon 64 chips with single-channel memory controller in sales.